


The Coffeehouse

by resonant_aura



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Coffeeshop AU, Multi, literally everyone shows up in this i kid you not, some swearing and some mentions of sex, we're treading on romcom territory here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 14:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6988381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resonant_aura/pseuds/resonant_aura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The redhead’s here again. She always orders a green tea, no sugars, no milk—that shit is bitter as hell and doesn’t even kick you in the guts like a black coffee. But she orders it every time she comes in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Coffeehouse

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All the people and places you recognize are the intellectual property of their respective creators--the ENTIRE cast of Geek & Sundry’s fantastic webstream show Critical Role.
> 
> Okay. YES. I know. It feels like there's already plenty of totally awesome coffee shop AUs but I HAD TO because this is my life. Also, hey check it out guys, a multi-chapter! *faints*

The redhead’s here again.

She always orders a green tea, no sugars, no milk—that shit is bitter as hell and doesn’t even kick you in the guts like a black coffee. But she orders it every time she comes in. Then she comes up to the counter, takes the cup on the saucer (it always rattles), and hides away in one of the lumpy, sagging couches. He can keep an eye on her while he’s chucking the dairy containers in the sink for a rinse or setting out cookies on the cooling racks. Her hair’s really easy to spot versus the faded early 90’s patchwork fabric.

He wonders if she’s reading, but he never can get out from behind the counter for long enough to find out.

***

Oh, god. _These_ two.

They look like a magician act, or a comedy spoof—one’s barely five feet tall and sporting a slick ponytail with too much gel, and the other’s a meaty six-foot-and-something, with shoulders that barely squeeze through the standard code doors. Sometimes Vax wonders if they should get a rotating door to spare the doorframe, but he thinks Mr. Lug might get confused by all the spinning. They stumble up to the counter, guffawing at some joke that was made outside.

“Baristo! Baristo!” the small one hollers. “Your finest vintage, sir, if you please!”

It’s 9:48 pm on a Tuesday. No fucking way.

“We aren’t licensed alcohol vendors, Mister Shorthalt,” Vax says with a blank face. Diplomacy and customer service don’t mean squat when two fools on a bender walk in ten minutes before closing. “You remember that, don’t you?”

“What? Impossible. This is the best coffeehouse in town. You must have alcohol _somewhere_.” He tries to peer over the counter as if Vax is hiding kegs where the overstock of plastic spoons goes. “Come on,” Shorthalt says with a wink, “anyone who’s on a first-name basis with me could slide me a little something, right?”

“Shorthalt is your last name.”

He waves a hand negligently. “It may as well be my first—how’d you even know it anyway?”

“You’re a regular customer here.” Vax can’t help the corner of a reluctant smile; for all that these two are jerks, they’re really quite charming. “Also it’s on your credit cards. Which I have to check. Often.”

“Hmmm.” Shorthalt leans in, squinting at Vax’s nametag. “Oh dear. I didn’t sleep with your wife, did I?”

“What?”

“Never mind, never mind!”

Mr. Lug—Vax has never caught his name, and he never pays the check—lets out a fantastic belch. Then, adorably, he blushes and coughs into his elbow. “’Scuse me,” he rumbles. “Um, don’t suppose you have anything for, uh, stomach problems?”

Vax stares at him blankly, then shakes his head, chuckling weakly. “I’ve got Tums around here somewhere…?”

“Yeah, uh. How much do I owe you?” Mr. Lug is patting himself down looking for a wallet, and Shorthalt is goggling at him like he’s a three-legged ostrich.

Vax swipes the bottle of Tums from on top of the mini-fridge and shakes two out onto the desk blotters advertising the “New Delicious Caramel Toffee Swirl Coffee!” He pushes them towards his customers. “No charge, as long as you can promise me you’ll actually leave at close tonight instead of hanging around trying to hit on Kima.”

“You are a gentleman and a scholar, sir,” Shorthalt deadpans, and then winks and says, “And also we’d like five slices of the lemon cake to go please. We have night work and must fuel ourselves!”

Vax rolls his eyes and gets the Styrofoam.

***

“Hello, brother,” Vex greets him, her bangles cheerfully banging together as she reaches across the counter to grab him by the ears and plant a loud smacking kiss on the crown of his head. “Get me something good.”

“Ow. I’m at work.”

“Yes, I know, or else you wouldn’t be able to get me a caffeine fix.” She smiles. “How’s the day?”

He shrugs. It’s noon, the early bird rush with sleep-starved eyes has already marched through, and now it’s fairly quiet. “A baby threw a honey spoon at my head.”

“How did it get the spoon?”

“Mom was trying to bribe it with candy.”

Vex shakes her head, glossy dark hair drifting in waves over her shoulders. “I don’t get it. Mothers. They don’t seem very smart, sometimes.”

“Estrogen-overload, probably.”

Vex snorts. “Anyone… _interesting_ , though? Anybody I should know about?”

Vax gives her a long-suffering look over the clunking and hissing espresso machine. “No.”

“Really? I thought I saw that really sweet guy, the one with all the sparkly. What was his name?”

“Vex, I can continue to dodge your freaky nosing into my supposed love life until you get all pouty and walk out, or we could talk about normal things like normal people.”

“Oh, as if you _like_ the normal people,” Vex scoffs, resting her chin in her hand as she leans on the counter. She flicks her debit card onto the ugly blotter, now sporting an ad for “An Inspirational Fresh New Beverage—With a Twist! Twisty Raspberry Sorbet Smoothie!” “What do normal people talk about anyway? The weather? Banks? Car trouble?”

“Whatever,” Vax shrugs, hoping she doesn’t see the flush creeping up his neck.

“I’m pretty sure I saw him though.”

“Who?”

“The _guy!_ ” Vex slaps her hand on the counter and then points at him in an overly-dramatic fashion. The group of old ladies in the middle of the room discussing their book club topics glance over with intimidating pursed lips. “You can’t fool me, buster, my twinsy powers will see through your deceptions!”

“Okay, well, try seeing them a little more quietly,” he hisses, taking her card and sliding a scalding cup of some frothy milky thing with way too many shots in it over to her. It doesn’t have a name; but he knows his sister and what she likes, he doesn’t need a recipe and a dumb glitzy name to come up with something for her.

“I’m just saying. You know. He’s nice. He’s handsome. You could do worse.” She winks. “And he has money!”

Vax wrinkles his nose. “What are you, my pimp?”

“Noooo,” Vex sighs, “I’m your sister, fighting an uphill battle to make you happy and get you laid.”

“That’s creepy. You’re my sister. As far as I know we are both non-sexual beings and no one has ever touched you so I don’t have break any fingers.”

“Siblings are totally all about the sex talk now. Haven’t you seen Game of Thrones?”

“Ew!”

Vex flashes him a grin, broad and bright and full of mischief. “You should get his name, Vax. He likes you a lot.”

***

His name is Shaun Gilmore, and he does like Vax a lot. Vax has already learned both of these things from Shaun Gilmore himself.

He never looks out of place, despite the upscale purple satin suit that he wears—eccentric enough to fit in with the funky artsy coffee shop patrons, Vax supposes, even though there’s definitely an eyebrow-raising brand label under the collar of that jacket. He doesn’t wear a watch, but he does have several rings; enough that trying to identify his marriage status is impossible from the start. He has changeable dark brown eyes, a charming smile that can switch to earnest solemnity in a blink, a nearly-unfashionable goatee and ponytail combo that almost makes him come off as a creeper but not quite, and a terrible addiction to business and caffeine.

“It’s the blood of the world, Vax,” Gilmore will say theatrically while cradling his mochaccino like it’s made with gold (may as well be, with how much they pay for that chocolate syrup per shipment.) “You ought to know. I’m sure you’ve seen your share of the corners of the world here.”

Vax just smiles and adds extra whipped cream, because he knows Gilmore likes it.

The other man snatches his hand into an intimate clasp before he can withdraw it. “Are you getting off later?”

_I don’t know, am I?_

Vax bites back a snicker and says, “Um. Tonight I’m closing shift.”

Gilmore gives him an impressive set of puppy dog eyes. Somehow it doesn’t clash with the rest of his image. “And what does that mean? Ten? Eleven?”

“Means I’ll be dog tired and horrible company,” Vax replies, not without regret.

“I wouldn’t mind you even if you were a rabid dog.”

“Thanks, I think?”

Gilmore flips over Vax’s hand and seems to be reading his palm, traveling over the creases in his skin with light, curious touches. The customer behind him seems too scandalized to complain about how long it’s taking for him to leave. “Perhaps it is our fate, to never be together in the right place at the right time.”

He takes a chance. “I think whenever we’re both in here, it’s exactly the right place and time. It’s good luck.”

Gilmore smiles broadly, sweetly, and Vax feels like he just downed an entire container of melted caramel. Gilmore takes his drink, winks with no subtlety at all, and sets himself up with scary single-mindedness in one of the small tables near the windows with a laptop and a notebook full of balance sheets. Vax hopes he’s not blushing (he is) and turns to the still-stunned woman next in line. “What can I get you?”

Gilmore is still there at eleven, and still there at midnight when the shop is cleaned and prepped and dark. He takes Vax out for late night fast food tacos, because it’s what’s available—the entire time insisting that next time they will have a proper meal, with decent, no, divine food, by heaven a man like him doesn’t gain a paunch from eating this slop—and Vax tries not to let the possibly quite terrifying wage gap scare him into silence, and teasingly suggests that if Gilmore has a paunch it’s come from all the sugar and milk in those destructive coffee drinks.

He doesn’t go home with him that night. But he is comfortable with the thought that, sometime, he will.

***

She’s back. The redhead. She’s got cheekbones that could probably stab a man to death, but they don’t look intimidating on her—just nice. Really nice.

“Green tea, please,” she says in a soft, almost shy murmur. She’s always shy, always looking down at something even lower than the floor.

Vax wordlessly slides an already-brewed, perfectly steaming mug in front of her. (He wishes he knew her favorite mug and saucer combination from all their eccentric mismatched crockery, but he doesn’t. He’s still kicking himself for it.)

She’s so surprised that she actually looks up. She has green eyes. Of course she does.

Wow.

She’s blushing. Why’s she blushing? Oh, god, he suddenly realizes she was talking.

_Say something, stupid!_

“Uh, I’m, I’m sorry,” he stumbles, “what did you say?” His voice breaks at the end of the question. He hopes the espresso machine explodes and takes his head off. Just one clean slice, goodbye humiliation.

“Um, I-I, I said, uh—” She slides the saucer closer towards her, fingertips perched on the ceramic like little birds. She swallows visibly. “H-How’d you know?”

He’s smiling like an idiot. “It’s your usual, isn’t it?”

“I… didn’t think I came in here that often for a usual.”

“Well, I just. I noticed. Is all. Trying to take good care of my customers, you know.”

They stand in awkward silence until she jerks a bit, out of a daydream maybe, and starts fishing for cash in her giant bag. It’s one of those big woven satchels, made out of hemp or something; no patches or buttons on it, but there’s a little keychain of a miniature, cutie-ized tree hooked around one strap. It’s smiling at him with cherubic, vegetative glee. Weird. But cute.

She fumbles with the bills and counts them twice, and Vax just watches, patient, drinking in the details. “What’s your name?” he asks without even meaning to.

The redhead gapes at him. “Huh?” she asks.

She’s _adorable_.

“Your name,” he says, aware that his smile wants to turn into a smirk but that is _not okay_. He bites his lip to keep from breaking into slightly hysterical, giddy laughter.

“Oh. Uh.” A small frown wrinkles between her eyebrows. “Why do you wanna know?”

Vax shrugs. “To… be nice? Friendly? I dunno.” He thinks of the scary things he vaguely overhears from the radio when he drives home, thinks of the small knife his sister carries in her bag and the self-defense classes she stoically took a couple years ago, and backpedals. “I mean—I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, I’m not—it’s fine I just—” The redhead stares down at her handful of wadded change and frowns harder. She sighs, a hard, heavy sound. Vax sinks from euphoria to misery in about 1.2 seconds.

“Sorry, miss,” he says, dragging professional customer service dialogue over himself like a shroud. “Never mind. Let me get you your change.”

Over the rattle of the till drawer opening he almost misses it: “It’s Keyleth.”

He glances up at her, afraid he’s misheard. “I’m… sorry?”

Her cheeks are red as cherries, but she’s smiling from beneath the sweep of her bangs. “My name’s Keyleth. Don’t apologize. We shouldn’t have to live in a world where we’re afraid of telling people our names.”

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.” Baffled by his own luck, Vax hands over her change. He carefully drops the coins in her palm without touching her skin.

“What’s yours?”

He blinks. “My what?”

“Your name?”

“Oh. It’s uh.” He coughs a little. “Vax.”

The little frown is back, perplexed. “Vvvvax?” She draws out the ‘v’ like she isn’t sure that’s the right sound to make. The corner of his mouth crooks in a reluctant smile.

“Yeah. Mom liked exotic names. That’s just the first syllable.”

She—Keyleth, her name’s Keyleth, he knows her _name_ now—Keyleth picks up her tea, now a little cooler, still with the same familiar rattling. “I’ll come back for the other ones,” she says, her smile a little broader, her eyes a little greener. She wanders off to sit in the lumpy, sagging couches.

Vax tries his best not to faint.

***

Saturdays are a completely different crowd from weekdays—nobody wants to get up before ten at the earliest, and most people come in looking for a quick bagel or a guilty slice of cake instead of beverages. Around noon the families will come in, moms and dads wanting a little caffeine and a little sit-down time while their kids squeal at the activity table, happily distracted (hopefully) with crayons and chalk. Afternoon will bring the gaggles of high schoolers, mostly girls, the occasional lanky guy, who all take _forever_ to figure out what they want to order. They’ll argue about it for a full twenty minutes. He’s seen it. Late night has the bleary-eyed college students, looking for liquid fuel to continue the weekend study binge, they wanted to go to that party tonight but they forgot the midterm was on Monday morning. Vax wishes he could sympathize—since he’s never been there, he doesn’t.

Joggers don’t come in on Saturdays. Joggers, on Saturdays, go to frozen yogurt stands or popsicle stands (now that it’s summer) or little cafes that serve brunch. They don’t come to the coffee shop except on weekdays.

Vax is utterly unprepared for the trio who march into the shop at exactly 9:30 am, huffing, loose strands of hair sticking to their necks, sneaker treads making a hollow plastic scuffing noise as they attack the counter. And he means _attack._

The tallest one, a willowy sort of woman wearing basic blue jogging pants and a cross-strapped tank, braces one arm on the counter. “Three Americanos, largest cup, two shots each. Please.” She’s only slightly breathing a little more regularly than the other two.

“Four,” barks the shortest of the trio.

“You’re getting two and you’ll like it,” says the third. They almost look like sisters with their similar stocky builds, faint freckles, decked out in spandex and mesh with Fitbits strapped to their wrists like armor. And, actually, one of them is—almost familiar—

“Four!” the short one hollers again, and Vax almost chokes on his own spit, because he recognizes that bawling tone. It could only come from a military captain, a short-order cook, or a coffeehouse manager.

“You know it’s bad for your health, darling—”

Kima shoulders her way up to the counter past the willowy woman and leans into Vax’s space. “Vax. I know your birthdate, your last name, and your wages. If you _don’t_ put four shots in my drink, I swear I will dock your pay for a month and no one will be able to stop me.”

“That’s illegal, Kima,” sighs her lookalike. Vax vaguely remembers her coming into the shop once before, some kind of friend or relative there for a promo event. Something starting with a P? Polly? Pearl?

Vax checks the temperature gauge and starts up on the Americanos, slides the glass door open on the pastry display because he’s sure that’ll be next. “I, uh, didn’t recognize you, Kima.”

“Yeah well. If I came to work in this getup I’d feel like a twerp. And no, Allura,” she says with a sharp glance at the tall woman whose lips are twisted in a wry smirk, “that doesn’t mean you guys look like twerps. But customers can be total di—jerks. _Ugh_ , I just want my coffee!”

“What a life of woe you lead,” Allura says soothingly (soothing? sarcastic? it’s kind of cool that Vax can’t tell, means Allura’s one of those sharp ones who can say something and it means five different things) and steers Kima by the shoulder away to one of the wonky tables with one leg that wobbles in the middle of the room. Vax silently works on the coffee, and he makes sure Kima’s gets the requested four shots (is there even room for water now?), while the other woman leans on the counter and smiles at him. Her fair hair is flyaway like dandelion fluff, despite the line of sweat that dampens it around her forehead.

“Hey,” she says cheerfully. “Sorry about that. Kima’s aggressive about winning the marathon. It carries over after the training, too.”

“It’s no problem.” The drip coffee is running low; he’ll probably have to grind fresh beans soon. “I didn’t know Kima did marathons.”

“She doesn’t do them. She _wins_ them. Big difference for her. She trains like crazy to have the best time out of all the runners.”

“I didn’t think the time was that important in most marathons?”

The woman shrugs. “It’s not always, but to Kima I guess it is. I’m Penelope, by the way,” she says, sticking her hand out over the counter as he returns to the register. “I’m her cousin. Most people call me Pike, though, so if you want to you can.”

Vax smiles. She has a warm, friendly attitude that he finds irresistibly comforting. He takes her hand in a good grip and shakes. “I’m Vax. I’m her slave.”

Pike laughs and shakes her head. “I hope not. She’s a good person but sometimes she’s a little—tone-deaf. Don’t let her run you over, okay?”

“I’ll try not to.”

He arranges the cups on a tray, one of those jigsaw-patterned fiascos you can get for fifteen bucks at a Pier One, and hands it over to Pike. She smiles broadly, an expression that he _swears_ feels like a hug, and takes the tray. “Come run with us sometime!”

“Uhhhhh…”

She’s still laughing at his obvious reluctance when she’s across the room, handing out caffeine like it’s breakfast.

***

The next time the redhead comes in, it’s late at night—date late—and she has a friend.

He’s not especially tall or broad, and walks with a little bit of a slouch to his shoulders that either implies self-effacing humility or a bad habit of leaning into his computer screens. He wears glasses that he fidgets with obnoxiously, and has extremely elegant hands, and wears a very nice suit jacket even though it’s summer and no one would be wearing a suit jacket in this heat if they weren’t pretentious.

Vax dislikes him immediately. But he has to admit that the guy is kind of cute. In a horrible kind of way.

“Green tea,” Keyleth chirps, as if she doesn’t know he knows, as if she’s forgotten all about him and names and syllables and the usual.

Vax tries to be stoic, tries not to think about the familiar gestures of making her tea, or her laughter at something this prick says, or anything at all.

“Earl Grey, if you’ve got it,” the man says, with a faint hint of a British accent. A _posh_ prick. “And honey and lemon, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“My pleasure,” Vax replies through gritted teeth. While Keyleth reaches for change, the stranger pays with a card without even looking at the tab, and waves away her protests in arrogant silence. Vax doesn’t bother to warn him that the kettle is hot.

They walk away to a table, not to one of the couches, and drink their tea over animated conversation.

Vax busies himself with cleaning and inventory and the work doesn’t help to distract him at all, even after they’ve left.

***

“You’ve the look of someone heartbroken,” says Gilmore, the very next morning. Vax slept poorly and thinks he probably looks like he has a hangover more than a broken heart.

“I’m glad to see you,” Vax replies, trying for diplomacy (and honesty). Gilmore crosses his arms and gives him a Look, eerily reminiscent of his sister, and damn he really wishes he hadn’t put those two people together in his head. He needs sleep. It’s only 7 AM. “I didn’t sleep well, that’s all.” He gives Gilmore a half-smile, placating, hopeful.

Gilmore examines him for a moment—it’s like he can _feel_ that look, going under his clothes and skin and into his blood—and then his body language changes entirely. “If you need help forgetting,” he says, voice low and eyes warm, “call this number. I know where to find you.”

He slides a business card onto the counter along with his credit card. Vax doesn’t say anything, just takes it and puts it in his pocket. The paper is thick and creamy, almost soft. He wants to leave his hand in his pocket all day and stroke that card until it’s dog-eared and fuzzy. Instead, he busies both his hands with creating the best damn mochaccino the world has ever seen. “The usual?” he says.

“The usual,” Gilmore confirms, laugh lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes. He doesn’t bother to hide the fact that he’s leaning into the counter to watch Vax work, watch his hands as they twist dials and pump levers and carefully pour and mix and cap.

Vax lets him.


End file.
